Tuesday, August 16, 2011

You can see color photos of many of the recipes in my newest book, World Vegan Feast, in this photo album. (There are now thirty-five 5-star reviews of "World Vegan Feast" on amazon.com and amazon.ca.)

A couple of weeks ago I started experimenting with veganizing some Spanish recipes-- beginning what will be an ongoing exploration of a neglected part of my culinary heritage. My first experiment was a Spanish meatball recipe-- well, Catalonian, actually. I had just about everything I needed to make it and it sounded delicious-- I love just about anything with wine and lemon zest. It utilizes a traditional Catalonian sauce component-- the "picada", which consists of bread, almonds, garlic and sometimes parsley and other seasonings. This cooking technique and the ingredients go all the way back to the Moorish occupation of Spain, from 711 to 1492. The words "albóndiga" (meatball) and "almendra" (almond) derive from Moorish words as do most, if not all, Spanish words beginning in Al, such as Alhambra.

This is interesting to me for various reasons-- one being that my father, who was half Spanish, looked quite Arabic, so much so that I'm sure his family had some Moorish blood dating back to those times. Maybe that's why I love Middle Eastern food and music so much.

My late father, Alejandro Jaime Urbina, shortly before he passed away-- still handsome.

This is what I came up with, slightly streamlined, and very delicious it was with homemade crusty bread to soak up the delicious sauce, and fresh green beans with tomato and garlic. (It is sometimes served with fried potatoes.) I still want to tinker with it a bit, but it's certainly worth sharing even in this early form.

Roll the "meatballs" lightly in flour and brown them in a 12" nonstick skillet with the 1-2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat until crusty on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Wipe out the skillet and pour in the broth and wine; bring it to a boil. Add the saffron, lemon zest, and sugar, whisking. Add the "meatballs" and remove from the heat.

In a smaller (8-9") skillet, heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the other "Picada" ingredients-- the breadcrumbs, almonds and garlic. Stir the mixture until it begins to turn golden, then take off the heat.

Browned "meatballs" and picada ingredients.

Grind the "picada" ingredients to a paste in a food processor and add it to the pan with the broth and "meatballs" and stir gently as it comes to a simmer. Turn the heat down, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes. If the sauce is too thick for your taste, add a little water. Taste for salt and pepper.

Serve the "albondigas" (meatballs in Spanish) with the sauce, sprinkled with the pimenton.

I too was going to ask about the neatballs and whether there were spices to be added to them. You were lucky to have grown up with access to such cultural variety and around people sophisticated enough to appreciate it. Our world would be shrunken without Arabic numerals, mathematical notation and Al-gebra allowing us advances like electronics and mechanized transportation. It's easy to forget our debts to the people and cultures that have paved the way to our modern global village, and to think it was always so.

Phlat, if you are making your own "meatballs", say from Match or Lightlife products, you could add some sweet Spanish paprika, choped parsley and pepper to the mix. I would also add some dark sesame oil, which is what I use instead of pork products sometimes, since it has a smokey rich flavor.

Yes, as you say, I am lucky to have been brought up the way I was. One of my favorite cookbook authors is the Canadian writer Habeeb Salloum (born in Saskatchewan of Syrian parents). He has written books, but also many essays on Arabic contributions to many facets of life, including the Spanish language: http://www.alhewar.net/Basket/Habeeb_Salloum_Spanish_Language.htm ; the impact of Arab language on languages in general: http://www.syriatoday.ca/salloum-arab-lan.htm ; Arab influence on Sicilian cooking: http://www.syriatoday.ca/salloum-arab-sci.htm ; Arab influence on Spanish agriculture: http://www.syriatoday.ca/salloum-arab-spain.htm and much much more. Here are some his food-related articles: http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/author/habeeb-salloum/

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ABOUT MISSING PHOTOS ON OLDER BLOG POSTS:

If you are wondering what happened to the photos on my older blog posts, here's the deal: I used to use Photobucket to store my photos and uploaded them to my blog posts from there. Since about 2012, I have uploaded pics from my computer files instead. All of a sudden, Photobucket is demanding $39 a month for storage and you can't download pictures to blogs or other sites unless you pay that. I find that fee outrageous (and I'm not the only one!). UPDATE: I discovered that I could upload albums from from PB to my computer (or external hard drive). So, I have done that, but it took a couple of days. Now I just have to locate the correct pictures for the old blogs! One step at a time. My apologies... please bear with me! BCG

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